Lose up to ten pounds in a week with our new diet!

Are you dreaming of lounging on the beach this summer, but worry that a winter's worth of comfort food has left you looking wobbly in all the wrong places?

Femail.co.uk can help. Today we bring you a delicious new diet that could help you lose weight and keep it off all summer.

The Watercress Soup Diet can help you lose up to ten pounds in one week and then help you to help maintain and build on your weight loss with a sensible and tasty eating plan.

Devotees include model Liz Hurley. She says: 'It's fatless, low calorie, full of vitamins and iron and delicious enough to serve at a dinner part. I drink at least six cups a day when eager to lose pounds.'

The foundation of the diet is, as the name suggests, a delicious watercress soup. But there are many other foods contained in the diet which you can often eat in unlimited amounts. You follow a strict one week programme to begin with. This is followed by a less restricted plan.

Watercress is a genuine superfood, packed full of vitamins A, B and C, plus iron, folic acid and many minerals. It is also an important source of antioxidants which help to fight free radicals in our bodies, the harmful elements which cause disease and ageing.

The values of watercress have been understood for many years. Over the centuries it has been an official medicine. For hundreds of years, it has been used as a cure for anaemia, in poultices for inflammation, and even as an antiseptic.

Hippocrates is understood to have decided on the location of his first hospital on the basis of its proximity to a stream which was a good source of the plant.

Click on the links below to find out how to start the diet and read the delicious recipes you can eat to maintain your weight loss.

There is also a chance for readers to win one of 30 Watercress Soup Diet books, containing even more recipes and weight loss tips. Click on the appropriate link below for your chance to win.